To a WWII combat cameraman with a 35mm Bell & Howell Eyemo, reflex viewing meant a captured German Arriflex 35mm. To today’s young camera operators, reflex viewing means a flip-out LCD.

Just as there are two camps when it comes to designing and using a handheld camcorder—compact, wrist-supported vs. elongated, shoulder-supported—there are now two camps when it comes to viewing while shooting.

The older viewing method, of course, involves putting an eye to the viewfinder cup.

Viewing a through-the-lens image, identical to that captured on motion-picture film itself, was an immense breakthrough in its day. Called "reflex" viewing, it enabled for the first time precise framing and focusing by eye at time of exposure.

The reflex viewing system commonly found in today’s motion-picture cameras dates back to the Arriflex 35 of 1937 (a battlefield acquisition prized by Allied cameramen, whose nonreflex Bell & Howells could not verify focus or exact framing). The Arriflex 35 introduced a semicircular mirrored shutter that spun around at a 45-degree angle to the film plane. As the shutter rotated into an open position, a frame of film was exposed. As it rotated to cap off further exposure, its tilted mirror bounced the image into a viewing screen. more